Dr. John Allen on the mining population in Northumberland and Durham in 1840
Report to the Committee of Council for Education, Parliamentary Papers, 1841, XX, pp.
159-161; in G. M. Young and W. D. Hancock, eds., English Historical Documents,
XII(1), 1833-1874 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956), pp.968-69. John Allen
describes the lives of the miners in the North and appeals to the paternalistic instincts of
the middle and upper classes to minister to the spiritual and educational needs of the
workers.)
. . .As far as regards their outward circumstances, perhaps few classes among our
labouring population are in a better condition than the colliers of the northern district.
After working for eight or ten hours in the pit, they come home to wash themselves
thoroughly, and sit down to a plentiful meal.
Their houses are in general clean, roomy, and well furnished. You can scarcely
enter one which does not contain a good four-post bedstead, a mahogany chest of
drawers, and a clock. Each householder fives rent-free, paying only 3d per week for the
leading of his coal. A small plot of ground for potatoes is commonly attached to each
dwelling; and large families, if provident, make a bargain with their employers for grass
for a cow....
The pitmen have hitherto been little influenced by political agitations. Reading
rooms do not prosper among them; and although some sale for worthless and seditious
papers is doubtless found amongst them, the publications chiefly circulated are books of
piety and devotion. In one cottage I noticed Adam Clarke's Bible, Wesley's Sermons,
Milner's Church History, and Leighton's Works. Those who have any deep religious
feelings are ordinarily Methodists. The parishes are extensive, and the great tithes are not
often in the hands of the incumbents. On the winning of a colliery, a large population is
suddenly located in a district which may very probably be some miles distant from the
church, the pastor of which may find his charge increased within a few months by some
thousands, the families being sometimes brought into the parish by carts, to the number
of 500 in a day. The church is almost unavoidably slow in her operations; it requires
considerable exertion to raise a consecrated place for worship within three years; but in
this time the people must in a great measure have formed their habits, and such as are
disposed to listen to teachers will have found them for themselves. An instance was
pointed out to me where, in a few weeks, a population Of 3000 had risen up at the
distance of three miles from the parish church, the incumbent having to provide
additional spiritual attendance and the means of locomotion, out of an income of £75 per
annum. A person well acquainted with the district, mentioned 6000 or 7000 as the
average number of persons which, in the thickly populated parishes, fell to the charge of
a single clergyman-a disproportion which is greatly increased when we take into account
that, out of every 100 clergymen, probably 20 at least, from some cause or other, will not
be effective among a population so difficult of access.
Within the last 16 years the attention of the clergy has been visibly drawn to the
necessity for raising school-houses and unconsecrated buildings for public worship
contemporaneously with the introduction of this shifting population into remote
neighbourhoods. The owners of collieries are, in most cases, willing to provide their
labourers with a room which may be used as a day and night-school during the week, and
on the Sunday is opened to one or two sects (and in some instances three) in succession,
for the purposes of public worship. But in very few cases does it seem to have occurred to
those who derive such large revenues from the soil, that, for a man to be in any sense the
spiritual pastor of the people, he must be with them as their adviser and friend during the
week as well as a preacher to them on the Sunday....
In the present state of things Sunday-schools are an institution to which the
serious minded will look with the deepest interest. It is true that the instruction given at
such schools must be very limited, and the teachers are often very little fitted, by their age
and their habits of thought, to dig into the minds of others. In many places pious poor
may be found, but what these have, they commonly are not able (through deficiency of
training) to impart to others. But may we not hope that persons of a higher range of
understanding, of more thought, information, and experience, will gradually be induced
to give their services to the amelioration of the condition of those beneath them? Are not
the upper classes becoming daily more sensible of their identity of interest with those
whose faculties of labour are their sole inheritance? Are there no signs of a growing sense
of the responsibilities men are laid under by superior rank and education? The great want
felt through the whole district is that of schoolmasters, men who may be better educated
and more systematically trained, but above all, men who may in some degree be sensible
of the great trust reposed in them when a parent confides to them the education of his
children.